


beam that lights the way home

by politicalmamaduck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, F/M, Parallel Lives, Reylo Fanfiction Anthology, Star Wars: Rebels References, Two Solitudes That Meet, references to many new canon novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/pseuds/politicalmamaduck
Summary: The star lit their path to each other, and lit their way home together.





	beam that lights the way home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Two Solitudes That Meet: the 2018 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology.
> 
> My celestial body is Polaris/the North Star, in poetic Irish translation as An Gaelin, 'beam that lights the way home', from which I have taken my title and inspiration. The direct Irish translation is an Mól Thuaidh. There unfortunately is not the amount of Irish mythology in this piece that I had wanted; it's rather a canonverse, canon compliant piece. My prior two Anthology pieces are both Irish mythology AUs, and though I'm sad I couldn't keep up that tradition here, I will return to those themes in the future!

On the worst, coldest, most brutal nights in the Jakku desert, Rey always had the stars to guide her. She longed for the day she could pilot her own ship and truly be among the stars.

When she could not fall asleep at night, she counted stars and dreamed of visiting all their planets.

The brightest among them always seemed to light her way home when she was out late scavenging. If she followed that star, shining bright above her, she always made it back to her AT-AT unharmed.

When she practiced on her flight simulators, she imagined taking off and flying to that brightest star someday. She was certain that the beings who lived in its system would be beautiful and kind, and there would be water and plants everywhere. It would be the exact opposite of Jakku in every way. She hoped that her parents were there, or at the very least, somewhere very different from Jakku, alive and safe, and that they’d come back for her and take her away. She knew that great pilots were able to use the stars to navigate, and she hoped that someday she’d be able to learn how to do that so she could find her parents and that brightest star.

Traders passing through Niima Outpost were rare, but Rey tried to eavesdrop on their conversations with Plutt and the others whenever she could. Her ears and mood perked up whenever she overheard pilots discussing their travels, and how the stars helped them pick up speed on the Kessel Run, or find useful hideout planets. She yearned to do so herself, even though she knew Jakku did not attract the great pilots from the histories she read on her scavenged Y-wing computer, the great pilots of her dreams. Perhaps one day the smugglers would tell tall tales about Rey of Jakku, who could always find her way home by following the brightest star; it kept her going day after day.

Night after night she marked her wall in her AT-AT, watching the stars and counting them too.

 

* * *

 

Ben Solo loved counting the stars in the night sky with his parents and uncles.

Uncle Chewie had been to almost as many different star systems as his dad and Uncle Lando. Uncle Luke had been to the most different planets, looking for Jedi artifacts and Force sensitive children. All of Ben’s uncles and his dad taught him how to use the stars to lay a course; they insisted that a navicomputer couldn’t always be trusted, that flying was just as much instinct and training as it was talent and navicomputer calculations. Ben’s dad boasted about the time they made the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs, guided by his instincts. Uncle Lando and Uncle Chewie would laugh and roll their eyes, and call his dad a pirate and a braggart. When his uncles laughed, his dad would wink at him, and then Ben would laugh too. Soon enough, they’d all have tears streaming from their eyes while they laughed harder and harder.

Ben’s mother told him her people’s legends about the stars. She couldn’t point to the planet in the night sky that was her home, since it was gone, but she braided his hair each night according to her people’s traditions and told him a story when she could. She always told the ones about how the stars could guide someone home, no matter how lost they were.

He loved hearing these stories, along with those about legendary heroes, and about his parents’ and uncles’ adventures during the war. He also loved the Alderaanian histories his mother told him, and how she and his grandmother Breha had to climb a huge mountain for their Challenge of the Body in order to earn their titles as Crown Princess.

There was no Appenza Peak anymore for Ben to climb to earn his own title, but his mother promised that when he came of age, they would find a suitable Challenge of the Body for him to complete.

Looking out his window to the night sky above Chandrila, his mother made another promise. “If you follow the stars, Ben, you will always find your way home.”

Ben hated watching his father leave in the _Millennium Falcon_ without him. He longed to fly like his father, with his father. Ben watched the stars each night, wondering where his dad was traveling, and hoping the stars would guide him home. He wished he could be there with him, helping him navigate from system to system. He would make sure they all arrived home safely, and they would always be together. Ben never gave up hope that everyone he loved would always come back for him, safe and sound. His mother taught him about the power of hope while they waited for his father to return.

Until one day, Ben was the one who didn’t come home.

 

* * *

 

Rey looked up at the night sky above the Resistance’s new base. She wasn’t entirely sure on which planet they’d found themselves; their flight from Crait had been so hectic, so frantic, and she had other concerns on her mind beyond their destination. The sky glittered before her, shimmering pinpricks of light in the darkness, and its vastness seemed to mock her. Surrounded by people, she was still so alone. She had finally found a group, a family to call her own, yet she could never truly belong. There was so much she couldn’t tell them, experiences that set her far apart from the Resistance rank and file who remained.

The sky here was very different from Jakku and Ahch-To. The nights on both planets had been clear and cold; both were far removed from the galaxy’s wider politics, from well-traveled hyperspace lanes leading to popular destinations. Ahch-To was hidden from prying eyes in the Unknown Regions, while Jakku was practically nowhere. She smiled, remembering Master Luke agreeing with her that Jakku was, in fact, nowhere.

She held the halves of a lightsaber in her hands and felt a corresponding ache in her heart.

Leia told her the Resistance had everything it needed, but Rey was still unsure. There were so few of them remaining; Poe and Finn filled her in on everything that happened while she was on Ahch-To, and how no one had answered Leia’s call. Leia was the only one who could understand the chasm that had opened in Rey, but Rey could not bear to tell her how close she was to bringing her son home, and how she failed to counter the darkness that still lurked in Ben.

Ben brought her comfort and understanding on that dark, lonely night on Ahch-To. He brought her something else in the throne room on the _Supremacy_. Fighting with him at her back made her feel truly alive, part of something far greater than simply their mortal bodies fighting to hold onto that spark of life. The Force had flowed through them, uniting their minds and bodies in such a way that Rey felt she’d spend the rest of her life chasing that feeling.

But Ben was gone.

He’d been subsumed by the mantle of Supreme Leader. She had chosen to close herself off from their bond, and she knew she made the right choice.

She needed to find her own way, she thought, looking up at the brightest star above her.  She had the lightsaber and the Jedi texts. She had Chewie, Finn and Leia, and now Poe and Rose to count as friends. The Resistance would support her.

Rey fell asleep that night wrapped in a flight jacket, clutching the broken halves of her lightsaber on top the roof.

Though the air cooled overnight and she lay exposed on a roof, Rey burned while she slept.

She dreamt of a man tortured by guilt, equal parts light and dark, as powerful and strong as she. She dreamt of his lips, full and soft, kissing his way down her body, making her back arch and her toes curl. In her dream she pulled him closer to her, ran her fingers through his thick dark hair, allowed herself to do what she wanted the way she would not, could not in life.

She awoke the next morning before the sunrise, the stars twinkling above her, covered in sweat and longing, and went for a long run before returning to her quarters to use the refresher.

 

* * *

 

From an undisclosed location in the Outer Rim, Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, looked up at the stars and sighed. They twinkled, far above him, and he couldn’t help but think they were mocking him from their vantage point.

He had everything he ever wanted within his grasp, and he let it slip away. He clenched his fist, hating his body’s all too human weakness. If only he hadn’t passed out on the _Supremacy_ . If only he had called off his fellow TIE fighters in the attack on the _Raddus_. If only he had personally captured the infernal droid BB-8.

If only. If only. If only.

It was a mantra, a litany, a connecting thread in all his life’s failures.

Skywalker always emphasized physical training along with the mental. He explained that his physical condition in his youth saved his life more than once, before he properly knew how to use the Force.

“The Force may be willing, but if the body is weak, there’s not much it can do, is there?” he explained to a student one long day in the hot sun.

That student died in the aftermath of Kylo’s fight with his uncle. He had been too weak to survive. Luke’s lesson didn’t sink in in time, prepare his classmate to be attacked by his own fellows. 

His uncle’s final words haunted Kylo’s sleep.

 _See you around, kid_.

And while Kylo hadn’t seen him--or Rey--in his waking hours, his dreams were still as haunted as they were when it was Snoke whispering to him in his sleep.

He dreamed of an island, of a beautiful young woman as powerful in the Force as he. The night was dark and the stars shone above them, the moon providing the only source of light. The wind seemed to whisper, blowing spray off the sea. The air was fresh, thick and salty, so different from the recycled air ever present on a ship.

She extended her hand, and he reached for it, but then he awoke, his sheets tangled about him, covered in sweat. The dreams felt so real, but he knew Rey was long gone from that island and would likely never go back. He wondered what it was like to live alone on an island, eating fresh fish for every meal, communing with the ghosts of the past. His uncle, a broken man, upended his entire life to do so. Rey spent her youth alone after her parents’ abandonment, trading metal scraps for portions each day.

Perhaps they were not as different from himself as he had thought, he pondered as he looked around his unadorned, stark quarters. He never had anyone in whom he could confide, not even those who left the academy with him. The Knights of Ren were far away now, helping Kylo rebuild the First Order.

He consciously refused to allow his mind to turn to the possibility that they would discover some Force sensitive children in the Outer Rim. He had far more important things to do than to deal with the upbringing of others like him.

The voice in his head that sounded so much like his father whispered that maybe it would help him heal, that he should pass on what he had learned. He wanted to rebuild the galaxy, bring it order, and surely untrained Force sensitives running amok was the opposite of order.

He shook his head. He had work to do.

 

* * *

 

It was a few days later when she was stargazing again that their bond came back to life. Rey had not been consciously shutting him out since Crait, but neither had she been looking for his presence.

Kylo’s back was to her, and he was looking out from a ship’s prow, through a massive transparisteel viewport. The stars twinkled in front of him, indicating they were in orbit above a planet. Not enough to surmise a location, Rey thought, but at least she knew that the First Order was stationed somewhere temporarily.

At first, so intent in thought was he that he did not seem to notice her presence, but she could not close off the bond the way she had on Crait.

He turned to face her, and Rey nearly gasped at how exhausted and drained he looked. His eyes were dark as ever, shadowed by deep circles, and his face looked thin and drawn. It was clear he was not sleeping or eating properly and had been pushing himself too hard in the training room.

Rey knew all too well what that was like.

“Why did you come back?” he asked, his voice nearly cracking and sounding as broken as he looked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I didn’t do this.”

“The Force is still connecting us,” he mused.

“Apparently,” Rey said, not rolling her eyes at the blatancy in his statement.

She realized that she still pitied him, even though he had made every choice placed before him incorrectly. He still had not found the peace he so desperately needed, and neither had she.

“They call you the last Jedi,” Kylo said, looking at her intently.

Rey vowed that her cheeks would not flush under his gaze’s heat.

“People want a legend they can believe in,” she replied. “Mine was Luke Skywalker.”

“So was mine,” he said, looking down at his feet before vanishing from her vision.

Rey pulled her jacket more tightly about her and lay down for a fitful sleep, filled with ghosts and shadows.

 

* * *

 

Kylo’s days as Supreme Leader were monotonous. He even became bored with threatening Hux. The general was determined to fight Kylo on every decision, no matter if it were for the First Order’s greater good or something as simple as supply storage.

Kylo had visions, grand plans of rebuilding economies with better hyperspace trade route management, and technology creating a better future for so many in the galaxy who still lived in squalid conditions. The Knights of Ren had swept through Tatooine, bringing order by destroying crime syndicates and effectively ending the slave trade.

Kylo was determined that there would never be anyone born in to slavery the way his grandfather was ever again.

Hux wanted to build another _Supremacy_ , another _Starkiller_.

Kylo laughed in his face.

“How well did that work for you in the past few months? The Resistance destroyed them both. Enough with the overwrought battle stations. We must invest in light fighters; the _Silencer_ is almost ready for mass production. We have enough to worry about.”

Hux grimaced and barely performed the expected courtesies before storming off.

Rey’s visits were a balm, a relief from the empty-headed sycophants and the short-sighted military careerists. Rey, with her spirit and intelligence. If only she had taken his hand… Another failure upon which he could not allow himself to dwell. At least she had returned to him in spirit, if not in the flesh.

 _The Force may be willing, but the flesh is weak_ haunted him when tears escaped his eyes at night. Getting out of bed, he looked through his viewport--the one luxury he now allowed himself in his quarters--and stared up at the stars, counting and trying to name them all. He tried so hard to memorize the galaxy map as a child.

It had changed, though. Alderaan and the Hosnian system’s viscera were visible from some parts of the galaxy; others still saw them as complete. New planets were still being discovered. Stars winked out and collapsed.

There was one that shone more brightly than the others, however, and he couldn’t help but feel it was the one his mother had told him about that the Alderaanians used to light their way home.

He fell asleep curled in on himself in the viewport seat, tear tracks streaking down his face, longing for a true home to call his own and a certain dark haired young woman with whom to argue about the Force.

 

* * *

 

Rey threw herself into her work more than ever, avoiding her friends and doing anything and everything General Organa could possibly need.

More often than not she awoke frustratedly aroused, her hair damp with sweat before she began her morning workout. Her dreams of Kylo Ren grew increasingly erotic, and she worried that soon everyone would know her secret by the flames blooming on her face.

She knew that while she had his friendship now, Poe Dameron would never accept her profound connection with Kylo Ren. Rose might understand, but her kind and gentle soul was still healing, along with her body. Rey didn’t want to burden her newest friend when she had so recently lost everything, and she didn’t want to interrupt the few precious moments Rose and Finn spent together either.

Finn, her first friend, had truly blossomed into a strategist, a leader, a man in love and finally at peace with himself.

She was so proud of him, and happy for him, and barely saw him for he was so busy rebuilding the Resistance and taking food to Rose when he could.

So Rey trained, worked hard, and tried not to let the ghosts of _you’re not alone; neither are you_ echo in her mind.

She was alone among the Resistance, save for the far too busy and world weary General.

She was not alone in her dreams.  

 

* * *

 

Ben’s favorite treat as a child was his mother’s Alderaanian sweetbread. It practically melted on the tongue, dusted with powdered sugar and paired perfectly with his uncle

Luke’s hot chocolate. It was a special treat for his birthdays.

Kylo Ren tasted nothing but blood and ash, no matter what he ate.

In addition to teaching him her people’s language and the intricate and ancient hair braiding art, Leia Organa sang her son traditional Alderaanian songs as a young boy.

 _Mirrorbright_ was one of the few things that could get him to sleep when he had a migraine, soothed by his mother’s singing and her kiss, but his favorite song told the story of a dreamer who sought his happiness among the stars, at the top of Appenza Peak, in the famed Alderaanian Toniray wine, and in poetry--everywhere except where his happiness truly was, in his beloved’s arms.

“Did I ever look up and see the moon and the stars and the sky?

Oh why have I been sleeping?

They say we are asleep until we fall in love; we are children of dust and ashes.

But when we fall in love we wake up, and we are a god and angels weep.”

Leia Organa’s voice was lost to the quicksand in Ben Solo’s memory, but somehow he remembered the words to the song perfectly.

Somehow, that was what he remembered, for what he longed, while once more his blood marred a throne room’s floor, while he lay incapacitated and weak, his adversaries’ bodies scattered through the room like crumbs from a table.

His mother’s voice, his only equal’s touch, both of their warm, dark hair braided and soft.

Hux sent the assassins while the Knights of Ren were far away. Kylo sent them to investigate rumors that Rey was rebuilding an academy for Force sensitive children; one was assigned to each potential planet.

The redheaded general had been ever irritating, a constant prickle at the back of Kylo’s mind. They had never trusted or respected each other, and Kylo knew their begrudging allyhood would soon come to an end.

He did not think it would be like this.

Most of the First Order command structure followed Hux. Former Imperials were ever eager to follow the pompous general who rose through the ranks the way they had, remaining suspicious of the Force after their experiences with Vader, Rax, and Snoke. Phasma would always do what it took to survive; Kylo respected her, enjoyed sparring with her, but her betrayal was also unsurprising. He supposed it was only fitting that he could not hold on to Snoke’s version of the Empire without Snoke himself. He purged that particular cancer from his mind and soul, and now he was purged from its rank and file, an outlier to a system in which he did not belong and never had.

Kylo Ren was alone, bleeding on the floor of a weakened, unstable ship that would certainly crash.

There was no place for him, no room for him anywhere.

All his life he felt alone, neglected by his parents and misunderstood by his uncle, but with Snoke at the back of his mind, he never truly was alone with his thoughts. Thoughts that now raced with blood loss and pain.

_Rey._

_Hux has taken over the First Order._

_Warn my mother. Tell her I’m sorry_.

With his last conscious thoughts, the man known as Kylo Ren, who had been the Supreme Leader of the First Order and Master of the Knights of Ren, desperately reached across the galaxy to the one person he hoped might listen.

As a child, Ben Solo had been taught to hope beyond hope.

“Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night,” he heard his mother tell Aunt Amilyn one day after tea.

As his eyes closed, he faintly felt someone pushing back his sweat drenched hair, a soft caress that seemed to reassure him that everything would be as the Force willed it. Her presence was softer than Rey’s, loving and maternal. The faint aroma of Gatalentan tea wafted through his senses; he heard bracelets clinking together as a soft hand stroked his hair.

 _Aunt Ami_ , he thought. _Tell my mother I’m so sorry. Tell her_...

 _She knows_ , his aunt’s ghost whispered back.

Ben Solo fell unconscious thinking of the powerful women to whom he owed his life. His mother, his aunt, his equal in the Force. He did not deserve them. He never had, and would spend the rest of his life trying to atone.

 

* * *

 

Rey followed the stars to find Ben.

One star stood out from the rest--her guiding light from Jakku. It guided her home then; it would help her bring Ben home now.

After the news that General Hux committed a mutiny and declared himself Supreme Leader, only General Organa knew the true reason behind the last Jedi’s secret mission. The beacon on her small ship signaled Leia directly, and only Leia knew of its existence.

The journey would be long and quiet, but Rey felt at peace watching the stars streak by her in shimmering parallel lines.

She knew that in the netherworld of the Force, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker were watching out for her. One night as she slept, she felt as though she and her ship were being caressed, kissed on the forehead by a tall woman with kind eyes.

Poe and Leia had told her about Amilyn Holdo, and when Rey awoke the next morning, she smiled and whispered her gratitude for the admiral’s blessing into the Force.

She flew her ship straight and true, the memory of the Rebellion’s brave pilots who died above and on Jakku, her lessons from Captain Solo and Chewbacca, and Admiral Holdo’s blessing to guide her along with the star shining in the distance.

The First Order remnant scattered; those not deemed loyal by new Supreme Leader Hux fled for their lives or presumably died alongside Kylo Ren.

Debris from a space battle surrounded the planet like a cloud. Rey knew about the battle of Lothal, about the planet’s significance to the Rebellion and its industrial history. The Resistance surmised that Kylo was trying to negotiate with the planetary government for use of the former Imperial factories to build his TIE Silencer prototypes when Hux made his move. The cloud above Lothal indicated that intelligence was true, and sure enough, Rey’s scanner indicated a shipwreck below her.

She landed the ship as quickly as she could in a field filled with tall grasses. It was quiet and peaceful, despite wolves howling in the distance. The crashed ship, still smoking, was easy to spot across the field.

Rey rushed to Ben, hoping she wouldn’t be too late.

He looked as though he were sleeping. If not for the blood that matted his hair and streaked down his cheek, she would imagine he was deep in restful sleep with pleasant dreams.

She reached out with the Force, lifting his body back to her ship where a med droid she had temporarily stolen from the Resistance waited. She would move him to an abandoned home as soon as she could, under cover of darkness, where they could wait and she would heal him as best she could.

 

* * *

 

Their temporary home featured a balcony, where they could enjoy the fresh air and look up at the stars. A gentle breeze blew the curtains in towards their bed, making their surroundings seem far more luxurious than they were.

It seemed the stars above them through the open balcony shone brightly as they kissed for the first time, their eyes glimmering in the moonlight. One star in particular beamed brighter than the others, and with the moon illuminated their surroundings.

Ben’s hair was one of the softest things Rey had ever touched. She had enjoyed running her hands through it in her dreams, but touching it for the first time in person was even better.

He kissed her as she entwined her fingers in his hair, pulling her even closer to him, one hand cupping her cheek and the other across her back. They kissed, gently and then more fervently, for quite a long while before Ben pulled back and looked into Rey’s eyes, seemingly unsure of what to say or ask.

She smiled, and cupped his cheek, stroking gently. Her fingers brushed the scar she gave him, and she looked up into his eyes, her smile fading.

“I can’t say I’m sorry I fought you that night,” she said, “but I am sorry I gave you this. I think that was the closest I ever came to the dark side.”

He nodded, and pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. “You were practically feral. I was unbalanced and weak, and I deserve it."

She shook her head, reaching her other hand up to brush a lock of hair back from his face.

“You have to find your own way, and make peace with yourself. But first, spend tonight with me.”

With that, she brought his face down to hers for another kiss. She let him take over the kiss, then began unbuttoning his shirt, stroking his strong chest as she went. He pulled back before she undid his trousers, running his hands up and down her arms. He removed her arm wraps, then she undid her belt to allow her outer wraps to fall to the floor.  She then turned her attentions to removing Ben’s trousers, tenderly pushing him down onto the bed and stroking down his broad chest to his already hard length.

“Rey,” he whispered, his eyes dark and soft.

She smiled as he reached up and pushed a lock of hair back from her face, cupping her cheek once more.

“I love you,” he murmured, leaning forward to palm her breasts, pressing kisses to them and flicking her nipples with his tongue.

“I know,” she said, inhaling and feeling warmth pool within her. Her walls clenched as Ben sucked at her breasts. “I know,” she moaned as her back arched.

He slid one finger within her, slick already. He stroked with his fingers, gradually at first, and then increased the pressure while also thumbing her clit.

“Ben,” she breathed, grinding on his fingers. She unclenched her fists at her sides to push him back down on the bed once more, more forcefully this time. She kept one hand open on his chest while she used her other to guide his thumb on her clit as she sank down onto him.

She moaned, feeling so tight and full and desperate for more friction.

They moved their bodies together, becoming one. They opened themselves in the Force to one another once more, and the world seemed to explode in colored starlight when they both reached their climax.

Rey and Ben finally slept peacefully that night, their balcony open to the soft night breeze and the fresh air. Neither had a nightmare, or whispers that haunted their sleep.

Above them, one particular star twinkled as if winking.

The star lit their path to each other, and lit their way home together.

**Author's Note:**

> My deepest thanks to my dearest Reylo Fanfiction Anthology mod sisters, particularly Viv and Celia, who were my editors for this piece, and my beta boo Desiree. 
> 
> If you are not familiar with Lothal, or the Battle of Lothal, those are direct references to Star Wars: Rebels, which I highly recommend! The Wookieepedia article will help if you'd like more information, but the idea here is that the former TIE Defender factories are what Kylo is seeking to use. 
> 
> Please leave me a comment with thoughts and your feedback, and don't hesitate to reach out on Tumblr as well.


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